Transcript

7.31.26 · History Hour

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. This is a radioized history show and
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Speaker 1: I'm your host and reader for this week, Joseph Bolt.
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Speaker 1: Happy to be with you for this time. And before
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Speaker 1: we begin today's program, we always need to remind you
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Speaker 1: that RADIOI is a listener driven, so that means you
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Speaker 1: and we welcome any of your comments, especially if you
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Speaker 1: have any comments about the history program. If you have
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Speaker 1: any topics that you want covered, I'll be glad to
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Speaker 1: research them and find some articles to read to you,
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Speaker 1: or just anything in general about what RADIOI does. So
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Speaker 1: the number is eight five nine four two two six
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Speaker 1: three nine zero. Let us know what you are thinking.
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Speaker 1: As you know, Radio I is a reading service that's
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Speaker 1: intended for people who are blind or have other disabilities
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Speaker 1: and make it difficult to read printed material. I'll cite
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Speaker 1: the sources for today's reading as we go along. So
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Speaker 1: the first article that I want to read about has
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Speaker 1: to do with my subject today, and that's the US mail.
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Speaker 1: So this particular article comes from the website Postal Museum. No,
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it comes from at Thelakemagazine dot com. And
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Speaker 1: the article's entitled mail Boat at one hundred and it's
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Speaker 1: written by Anne Morrissey. In May of twenty sixteen, so
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Speaker 1: let's read this article. The summer of nineteen sixteen was
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Speaker 1: a fairly sleepy one on Geneva Lake. America, not yet
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Speaker 1: involved in World War One, was still reveling in the
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Speaker 1: Gilded Age. Bottomie and the wealthy elite of Chicago had
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Speaker 1: declared Lake Geneva their summer headquarters by building increasingly grand
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Speaker 1: Gatsby esque mansions along the shoreline. But the younger members
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Speaker 1: of the leisure class were beginning to shed the quiet
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Speaker 1: pursuits of an earlier era and seek entertainment in a
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Speaker 1: variety of increasingly exciting forms, such as jazz music, automobiles,
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Speaker 1: horse racing, boxing, biplane aeronautics, diving horses, traveling circuses. America's
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Speaker 1: youth embraced a growing list of adventurous diversions. Modern entertainment
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Speaker 1: has evolved quite a bit since nineteen sixteen, but there's
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Speaker 1: one daredevil act from that era that's pain audiences thronged
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Speaker 1: to see one hundred years later, the daily spectacle of
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Speaker 1: the mail jumper hopping on and off the swiftly moving mailboat.
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Speaker 1: It's a form of mail delivery that has proved to
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Speaker 1: be just as popular today. As it was when first
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Speaker 1: introduced a century ago. The homeowners love it because it's
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Speaker 1: much more convenient to have the mail delivered directly to
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Speaker 1: their dock in the morning, explains veteran mailboat captain Neil Frame.
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Speaker 1: He goes on to say, and they enjoy the novelty
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Speaker 1: of an historic event taking place every morning on their peer,
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Speaker 1: and an historic event it is. The iconic mail boat
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Speaker 1: is celebrating its one hundredth anniversary, making Lake Geneva one
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Speaker 1: of the few places in the country that can boast continuous,
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Speaker 1: if seasonal, marine mail delivery over the past century. According
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Speaker 1: to Ellen Berling, longtime office manager at Lake Geneva Cruise Line,
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Speaker 1: which operates the mailboat, the anniversary brings with it opportunities
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Speaker 1: to reflect on the mailboat tradition and celebrate the people
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Speaker 1: who had made it such a success. She says, quote,
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Speaker 1: the Gage family bought the company operating the mailboat in
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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight, and it has been in the family
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Speaker 1: every since. The family like bond also extends to the
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Speaker 1: mailboat operations. Frame is celebrating more than forty years as
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Speaker 1: a mailboat captain, while Burling has been on the office
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Speaker 1: operation side for thirty five years. Mail jumpers are usually
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Speaker 1: college HS students, but those jobs often run in families,
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Speaker 1: with several sets of siblings over the years performing the
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Speaker 1: important male jumper duties of delivering mail and narrating the
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Speaker 1: tour in between jumps. Even the homeowners who receive mail
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Speaker 1: delivery are a part of the mail boat family. Over
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Speaker 1: the past one hundred years, the mail boat tradition has
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Speaker 1: become an indelible part of Lake Geneva's culture and history.
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Speaker 1: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, marine mail
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Speaker 1: delivered solve the common problem in rural areas. How could
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Speaker 1: the US Postal Service ensure regular rural delivery when roads
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Speaker 1: were few and far between and often impassable due to weather.
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Speaker 1: A Frame goes on to say, it was very difficult
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Speaker 1: to travel in the area. Then the roads were still
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Speaker 1: pretty primitive in quote. More commonly, lake residents rode the
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Speaker 1: train to Williams Bay and transferred to a steamer for
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Speaker 1: a ride to their estates. A lot of stuff was
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Speaker 1: done by boat back at that time, Frame says, and
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Speaker 1: he says there was even a grocery boat that went
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Speaker 1: around and delivered groceries en quote. Starting as early as
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, mail was one of the many things
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Speaker 1: that might be delivered by boat on Geneva Lake. By
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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four, the Chicago Tribune was able to offer
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Speaker 1: newspaper home delivery to lake residents by boat. Six years
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Speaker 1: later they chronicled the process in an article about these
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Speaker 1: unusual distribution methods, methods which would be applied to the
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Speaker 1: mail as well. The papers leave Chicago in two huge
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Speaker 1: bundles on the Chicago and Elroy fast Mail on the
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Speaker 1: Chicago and Northwestern Road. One bundle is put off at Harvard,
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Speaker 1: whence it is sent across to Fontana on the Harvard
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Speaker 1: Electric Road. Two boys meet this car and begin delivering
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Speaker 1: on foot two subscribers long before they're up, starting in
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Speaker 1: different directions from the head of the lake. The other
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Speaker 1: bundle is put off at Clinton Junction, where it is
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Speaker 1: loaded on a fast train on the Chicago, Milwaukee and
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Speaker 1: Saint Paul Road. It is put off at Springfield, where
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Speaker 1: the star router places the sack on his stagecoach rushes
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Speaker 1: it over to Lake Geneva, four miles distant. Here in
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Speaker 1: waiting is the steamboat wilbur F. The papers are put
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Speaker 1: abroad and soon Captain Sanford and his engineer are at
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Speaker 1: work making all of the docks around the lake in
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Speaker 1: a hurry. This Chicago Tribune article goes on to describe
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Speaker 1: how the Leffin's family spaniel would wait on their pier
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Speaker 1: every morning to catch the paper in his mouth as
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Speaker 1: the engineer threw it from the boat. It is not
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Speaker 1: hard to imagine that the summer residents appreciated their daily papers,
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Speaker 1: but also wanted regular, dependable mail service as well. The
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Speaker 1: Wisconsin Transportation Company filled that void, and in nineteen sixteen
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Speaker 1: they introduced the first passenger boat for marine mail delivery
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Speaker 1: on Geneva Lake. Co owner of the Wisconsin Transportation Company
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Speaker 1: and master boat builder Tilford Sylvessan built the first mail boat,
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Speaker 1: a single deck vessel christen the Walmart, or rather the Walworth,
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Speaker 1: capable of carrying seventy five passengers on the daily mail
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Speaker 1: route around the lake. That boat would go on to
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Speaker 1: deliver the mail every day all summer for almost fifty years.
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Speaker 1: The mail boat continued to make peer deliveries, including the
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Speaker 1: Sunday newspapers, all through World War II, providing a valued
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Speaker 1: source of information to lake residents. By the nineteen six sixties,
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Speaker 1: marine mail delivery became a rare enough phenomenon that visitors
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Speaker 1: from nearby cities began to take notice. A June nineteen
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Speaker 1: sixty two Chicago Tribune column about the tourist possibilities of
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Speaker 1: the Lake Geneva area, including a mail boat, mentioned and
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Speaker 1: stated it this way. The Lake Geneva mailboat took off,
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Speaker 1: carrying not only mail for the shore residents, but several
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Speaker 1: dozen assistant mailmen. These are really pained tourists who are
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Speaker 1: treated to a breezy ride along the mansion dotted shoreline.
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Speaker 1: As the area continued to gain popularity as an affordable
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Speaker 1: family getaway, day trippers and weekend visitors loved the opportunity
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Speaker 1: to view the lake's distinctive grand mansions at a relatively
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Speaker 1: close distance. The mail boat riders are getting a very
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Speaker 1: close up view of the homes, explains Frame, and he
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Speaker 1: goes on to say generally, we're traveling right up to
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Speaker 1: the shore, so we're much closer to the homes than
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Speaker 1: we are on the regular tours of the lake. Frame
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Speaker 1: goes on to explain that this close to the shore
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Speaker 1: navigation is possible in part thanks to the topography of
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Speaker 1: Geneva Lake. The reason the mailboat route was able to
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Speaker 1: work originally and still works today is because this lake
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Speaker 1: is unique in that it is very deep, he explains.
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Speaker 1: By its fiftieth year of service, the mail boat tour
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Speaker 1: was so popular that Lake Geneva Cruise Line decided to
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Speaker 1: introduce a new, larger mail boat with more passenger capacity.
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Speaker 1: The boat has improved so much over the years, says Frame.
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Speaker 1: The current mail boat, the Walworth two, was introduced in
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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five and held one hundred and twenty passengers
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Speaker 1: at the time. Then in nineteen seventy nine the boat
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Speaker 1: was improved again. Frame says the Gages decided they wanted
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Speaker 1: to modernize it. They cut the boat in half and
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Speaker 1: lengthened it, and that's when they put in windows, air
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Speaker 1: conditioning and the canopy. The newly lengthened and improved boat
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Speaker 1: now holds a hundred sixty passengers on its daily tours,
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Speaker 1: which leave the Riviera Dock in Lake Geneva at ten
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Speaker 1: a m, just as they always have. The modern era
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Speaker 1: ushered in other small changes to the tour as well.
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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy four, Elaine Canelos became the first woman
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Speaker 1: to jump the mail ending nearly six decades of male
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Speaker 1: domination of that roll to day lake Geneva Cruz Line
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Speaker 1: holds tryouts for roughly six male jumper positions each summer,
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Speaker 1: and winters tend to be fairly evenly split between men
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Speaker 1: and women. As fewer and fewer of the historic mansions
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Speaker 1: remain standing around the lake, Berlin says they have added
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Speaker 1: video screens to the tour as well. We have a
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Speaker 1: camera that shows the catwall where the person jumps on
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Speaker 1: and off, so no matter wear you are seated, you
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Speaker 1: have a great view of that, she says. And in
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Speaker 1: between jumps, the screens show images of the grand mansions
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Speaker 1: that have been raised around the lake over the years.
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Speaker 1: When you're on board and you get to each point
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Speaker 1: on the lake, you see pictures of what the homes
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Speaker 1: used to look like. Some of them still remain, but
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Speaker 1: there are so many more that aren't here any more.
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Speaker 1: In Ute, even as the historic houses have been coming down,
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Speaker 1: the mail boat tour has remained extremely popular. A segment
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Speaker 1: on CBS News and CBS This Morning in two thousand
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Speaker 1: and five introduced the mail boat to an international audience.
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Speaker 1: We still have people who come from all over the
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Speaker 1: world to take the mail boat tour because they sought
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Speaker 1: on t V, says Frame. Local news outlets have also
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Speaker 1: reported on this unique attraction that has drawn thousands of
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Speaker 1: passengers over the years. Anna Vote, three year veteran mail jumper, says,
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Speaker 1: the remarkable thing is how little has really changed about
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Speaker 1: the mail boat tour over the past hundred years. The
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Speaker 1: mail boat has stood the test of time because not
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Speaker 1: a lot has changed, she says. Passengers are excited to
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Speaker 1: learn about the history of the lake even after so
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Speaker 1: many years, and the passengers are what keep the tradition alive.
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Speaker 1: This next story comes from the website Smithsonian Institute dot
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Speaker 1: edu of Slash Story Slash Mules Stories entitled in the
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Speaker 1: Grand Canyon, the US Postal Service still delivers mail by
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Speaker 1: mule And that was written by Hannah Ostrof in August
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Speaker 1: of twenty and sixteen. Let's read, in an age of
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Speaker 1: one hour delivery and overnight shipping, the corner of the
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Speaker 1: country still gets its mail by mule. That's right. For
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Speaker 1: a small group of people living in the Grand Canyon.
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Speaker 1: The post comes via hooved carriers who trek hours down
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Speaker 1: into the canyon to deliver parcels six days a week.
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Speaker 1: In the last official mail by mule route in the
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Speaker 1: country and probably one of the last in the world,
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Speaker 1: according to Daniel Piazza, chief curator of Philadeli, which is
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Speaker 1: the study of stamps at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.
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Speaker 1: The route is featured in the new Postal Museum exhibition
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Speaker 1: entitled Trailblazing one hundred Years of Our National Parks, which
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Speaker 1: explores the connection between two seemingly unrelated national services, recreation
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Speaker 1: and the mail in the Grand Canyon. We don't know
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Speaker 1: how long the mail's been traveling by mule, but by
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Speaker 1: the time museum photographers documented the route in nineteen thirty eight,
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Speaker 1: it was a well established method for deliveries for decades.
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Speaker 1: In possibly centuries, mules have carried the mail down to
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Speaker 1: the Habasupi people, an American Indian tribe who live in
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Speaker 1: the Supai Village in the Grand Canyon, but outside National
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Speaker 1: Park jurisdiction. Another unofficial route carries mail to a tourist
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Speaker 1: lodge called Phantom Ranch. It's not through a US Postal
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Speaker 1: Service contract, but the mail that comes and goes as
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Speaker 1: a courtesy to guests does get a special marking that
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Speaker 1: it was quote mailed by mule. These areas are not
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Speaker 1: accessible by road. There are only three ways to reach
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Speaker 1: them by hiking, mule optional the canyon, rafting down the
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Speaker 1: Colorado River, or by helicopter, So the mail comes by mule.
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Speaker 1: For the have Asoupie route, it's three hours down but
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Speaker 1: five hours back up. At least two mule trains are
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Speaker 1: on the route each day, so mules and riders don't
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Speaker 1: have to make the trip down and back without a
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Speaker 1: stop overnight in the village. Unlike your mail, the majority
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Speaker 1: of the deliveries aren't magazines. Without nearby grocery stores or
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Speaker 1: stores of any kind, the post serves a different purpose.
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Speaker 1: Most of the mail is not mail at all. Piazza says,
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Speaker 1: it's food. The mail supplies that have Asupie people with
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Speaker 1: a multitude of modern amenities, from packaged food to medicine
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Speaker 1: to small appliance. The village could not sustain itself without
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Speaker 1: the mail. One of the mule train's last stops before
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Speaker 1: the canyon is in Peach Springs, Arizona. It's the only
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Speaker 1: post office in the country with a walk in freezer
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Speaker 1: to keep frozen food as cold as possible before the
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Speaker 1: next leg of the journey. From there, a contractor picks
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Speaker 1: up the mail and drives it an hour on a
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Speaker 1: rough road to the top of the canyon. It's then
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Speaker 1: handed over to the mule team, which is also a
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Speaker 1: long standing operation. Piazza says. The same person has held
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Speaker 1: the contract with a postal service for more than twenty
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Speaker 1: five years, and chances are good his son will inherit
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Speaker 1: it when he retires. There aren't many people clamoring to
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Speaker 1: run a mule mail. When Piazza saw the highly unusual
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Speaker 1: operation in purpose, he photographed the array of packages lined
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Speaker 1: up for shipment, dish, soap, pharmaceuticals, an Amazon Prime box.
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Speaker 1: Those all get loaded up on the mules, up to
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Speaker 1: two hundred pounds per mule at a time. It's quite
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Speaker 1: a scene for Piazza. Research from books and documents can't
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Speaker 1: replace being in the field, he says, You really just
20:32
Speaker 1: have to go and see it and photograph it. There's
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Speaker 1: no way to do that other than visiting. It's also
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Speaker 1: a chance to collect objects for the museum, like the
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Speaker 1: saddle that's now part of the exhibition. In person, its
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Speaker 1: size is striking and stands in for the large animal
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Speaker 1: that makes the march down with all that mail. Get
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Speaker 1: up close and you can see how the saddle molded
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Speaker 1: to its rider's legs. The mule mail contractor offered to
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Speaker 1: donate a new saddle to the museum, but this one,
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Speaker 1: well worn and frequently repaired, speaks to a long and
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Speaker 1: hardy life on the postal route. Be glad you aren't
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Speaker 1: greeted by the smell, though, which Piazza describes as wet
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Speaker 1: mule when it arrived at the museum. It's since been
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Speaker 1: packed in charcoal for a time to reduce the aroma
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Speaker 1: before going on display in the exhibition. The saddle and
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Speaker 1: the mule mail route it traversed are just a piece
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Speaker 1: of a bigger story about mail in our national parks.
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Speaker 1: The Supai village is an extreme case, but many people
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Speaker 1: live in the parks, especially out west, where the nearest
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Speaker 1: town might be forty five minutes away. Those rangers and
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Speaker 1: workers need supplies, and the postal Service honors its commitment
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Speaker 1: to deliver wherever there are people. Piazza says, the mail
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Speaker 1: goes everywhere. The last article I'd like to read for
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Speaker 1: this time it comes from Mirror dot co dot uk
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Speaker 1: and the articles entitled the World's most remote post office
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Speaker 1: is on an island isolated surrounded by penguins threaten by
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Speaker 1: Isabelle Pankhurst in June of twenty four. Britain's most southerly
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Speaker 1: public post office is located in Port Lockroy on the
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Speaker 1: remote Gautier Island. The island, which is home to over
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Speaker 1: a thousand penguins, is part of the British Antarctic Territory.
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Speaker 1: Port Lockroy was founded in February of nineteen forty fours
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Speaker 1: part of Operation Tabaran, a secret wartime mission to secure
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Speaker 1: territorial claims an Antarcticle. Following the end of the war
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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five, the base was turned into an
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Speaker 1: atmospheric science research base and communication hub, which it remained
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Speaker 1: until January of nineteen sixty two. Then in nineteen ninety
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Speaker 1: five it was designated in an Historic Site monument. Since
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Speaker 1: November of nineteen ninety six, the site of the former
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Speaker 1: research base has been run as a museum, welcoming up
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Speaker 1: to eighteen thousand visitors a season, with workers and some
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Speaker 1: tourists visiting the island as no surprise that there is
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Speaker 1: a post office there too. The Port Lockroy Post office
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Speaker 1: sends an estimated seventy thousand cards each year to over
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Speaker 1: one hundred company countries. Former port Lockroy worker Sarah pointed
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Speaker 1: up about this unique post office when talking to Ends
24:06
Speaker 1: of the Earth, which is a newsletter for Swap, a
24:09
Speaker 1: global community for adventure travel enthusiasts. Sarah says, as you
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Speaker 1: approach the Penguin post Office, located on a tiny island
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Speaker 1: off the Antarctic Peninsula, you're greeted by the ruh rue
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Speaker 1: sound of six hundred pairs of nesting gentoo penguins. Early
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Speaker 1: in the season, you may have to climb up a
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Speaker 1: snow staircase, or later in the season find your way
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Speaker 1: up a guano splattered rock to access the building. It
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Speaker 1: is certainly not your average trip to the post office.
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Speaker 1: And explaining how the post office functions, she continued and says,
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Speaker 1: sending a postcard costs one US dollar no matter the destination.
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Speaker 1: The team sorts the mail by hand. On a busy
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Speaker 1: day there can be more than a thousand postcards. Then
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Speaker 1: it is bundled weighed. Almost eleven hundred pounds of mail
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Speaker 1: is processed by the team each season, bagged and transported
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Speaker 1: to the Falklands by an expedition ship, weather in ice permitting,
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Speaker 1: every postcard is quite a journey before reaching its final destination.
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Speaker 1: Once the bag mail reaches the Falklands, the Stanley Post
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Speaker 1: Office puts it on the weekly Royal Air Force plane
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Speaker 1: to the UK, where it finally enters the regular postal service.
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Speaker 1: The fastest a postcard can travel from Port Lockroy to
25:34
Speaker 1: Cambridge is just over two weeks. However, it often takes
25:40
Speaker 1: longer as the mail may not leave us for a
25:42
Speaker 1: week or two after it's dropped in the box. What's more,
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Speaker 1: at the end of the season, no ships return to
25:48
Speaker 1: the Falklands, so if you visit Port Lockroy after mid February,
25:52
Speaker 1: your mail most likely will overwinter in Antarctica. Well that
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Speaker 1: about does it for this chapter of RADIOI History. I'm
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Speaker 1: your host, Joseph Bolt. I hope you enjoyed to day's reading.
26:10
Speaker 1: I'll be back next time with another chapter of Radio
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Speaker 1: I History, and until then, happy trails to you.